In a wireless communications system there is typically a fixed amount of air link resources available for utilization by wireless communications devices for combined control signaling and traffic signaling. In a wireless communications system lacking centralized control, e.g., an ad hoc peer to peer network, the scheduling of traffic air link resources is a challenging task.
At times a device in a peer to peer network may desire to broadcast the same data to a plurality of other devices in the network, e.g., an open ended set of devices, which may happen to be in its local vicinity at the time. Using a broadcast signaling approach can, at times, be more efficient than having to schedule and transmit the same unicast data signals to multiple devices over multiple peer to peer connections. It would be beneficial if new methods and apparatus were developed which supported broadcast communications in a peer to peer network, thus allowing the same traffic signal to be communicated efficiently to multiple other devices. Methods and apparatus that support broadcast capability in a peer to peer network and do not waste traffic air link resources when broadcasting would be beneficial.